UB receives $200K gift, adds vice provost for enrollment

A prominent University at Buffalo alumnus has donated $200,000 to fund a new laboratory in UB’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Robin Li, who earned a UB master’s degree in 1994, and his wife, Melissa Dongmin Ma, are responsible for the gift. Li is co-founder of Baidu.com, China’s largest search engine.

UB officials said the lab will be used in the areas of machine learning and data mining, which involves extracting information from large databases. Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence.

“The gift ensures the school can continue to pursue significant research while we proceed on an upward trajectory of excellence,” said Liesel Folks, dean of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which oversees the computer science and engineering department.

Li studied at UB’s Center for Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition while earning his master’s degree, which he received in 1994. He co-founded Baidu in January 2000, and the company now commands more than 80 percent of the Chinese search market, according to a UB news release. He was named one of the world’s most influential people in Time Magazine in 2010.

• In other UB news, Lee Melvin has been hired as vice provost for enrollment at UB. Melvin’s appointment follows a national search and he will join UB in mid-July. He is currently associate vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University.

The newly created position will lead development, articulation and implementation of UB’s enrollment management strategy, with responsibility for “maintaining academic momentum” and moving the university to higher levels of academic distinction, according to a UB news release. UB’s total enrollment is 28,860.

“I am thrilled and humbled by my appointment and look forward to working with communities at UB and the Buffalo-Niagara region on increasing access to higher education and contributing to the momentum of the institution’s ambitious aspirations,” Melvin said.

Prior to Cornell, Melvin held appointments as vice president for enrollment management and director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Connecticut, associate director of university admissions at Wayne State University in Detroit and assistant director of admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.